"Keep still!" he warned again, and, stretching one hand toward her as though to do sentry duty, ready to throttle any sound, to stay any flight, to bolster his commands, he crept closer to the window.
"Why ain't it good?" Rhues was asking in a voice that carried no great conviction, as though he merely stalled for time.
VB saw him stretch a bill close to the lamp and Matson lean low beside him. The light fell on the piece of currency, not six feet from VB's fever-bright eyes. He saw that they were inspecting a fifty-dollar bill issued by the Confederate States of America! And Rhues said grudgingly: "Well, if that ain't good, they's only six hunderd 'n all!"
Up came the buried memories, struggling through all the welded events in the furnace consciousness of the man who pressed his face so close to the window's crinkly glass. His eyes sought aimlessly for some object that might suggest a solution for the slipping thought he tried to grasp. They found it—found it in a rumpled, coiled contrivance of leather that lay beside the lamp. It was a money belt. The money belt that Kelly, the horse buyer, had worn!
Six hundred dollars! And a Confederate States fifty-dollar bill! They were quarreling over the spoils of that chill murder!
VB swayed unsteadily as he felt a rage swell in him, a rage that nullified caution. He turned his eyes back to the Mexican girl cringing just out of his reach and moved the extended hand up and down slowly to keep his warning fresh upon her. He wanted time to think, just a moment to determine what action would be most advisable. His heart raced unevenly and he thought the hot edges of his wound were blistering.
"That's two hundred apiece, then," Rhues said, and straightened.
VB saw that the hand which had dropped the worthless piece of paper held a roll of yellow-backed bills.
"Two hundred we all git," he growled. "You git it, Julio gits it, I git it—an' I'm th' party what done th' work!"
VB stooped and grasped Delilah roughly by the arm. He held a finger to his lips as he dragged the shaking girl out to where she could see.